Congress wouldn't move on a minimum wage bill, so President Obama issued an Executive Order raising the minimum wage for federal workers on future contracts to $10.10/hour. Congress also won't move on the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would (among other things) stop corporations from retaliating against workers who discuss their pay with each other; will Mr. Obama step in here, as well? He is well within his rights to do so, since you have to follow federal rules if you want to take federal money. Hence the National Women's Law Center helps you tell Mr. Obama to issue an Executive Order preventing contractors from retaliating against workers who discuss their pay with co-workers. What's the big deal, you ask? Many times, talking with your co-workers about what you're making is the only way you can find out you're a victim of pay discrimination. And why should our tax dollars -- since that is how federal contractors get paid -- aid and abet discrimination? Wait, let me guess -- federal contractors with a sincere religious belief that women should be paid less should be coddled by the taxpayer!
Meanwhile, the fight for proper labeling of genetically-modified food isn't going as well as you'd think an effort 90% of the people support would go, so I have two action alerts you may want to pursue. In one, PennPIRG helps you tell supermarket chain Giant to label the genetically-modified foods it sells, and in the other, CREDO helps you tell General Mills to label genetically-modified ingredients in all of its cereal products. General Mills has committed to labeling genetically-modified ingredients in Cheerios, which is no small thing, but General Mills also makes Chex, Golden Grahams, Lucky Charms -- and Honey Nut Cheerios (to my taste, at least, the superior product), which General Mills has apparently exempted from its Cheerios edict. Note to people who complain that we never compromise: it's labeling, not banning! Why are you afraid of labeling? If opposition to Frankenfoods is all ignorance -- and not, say, about heightened exposure to pesticides and increased incidence of cancer -- why not just prove it?
Finally, the school voucher movement won't go away -- S. 1968/H.R. 4000, the innocuously-named Scholarships for Kids Act, would convert almost two-thirds of federal education funding into vouchers for private schools, and S. 1909, the so-called CHOICE Act, would shovel most of the rest toward private schools. If Medicare vouchers are such a terrible idea, why are public school vouchers a better one? They'd both do the same thing: they'd siphon off taxpayer money that could be used to make our public services better, and give that money to private interests, which won't do a better job than our public services do and which will also keep as much of our taxpayer money for themselves as they can. You saw that note from PR Watch earlier today, I trust, which showed the true vampires of public funding to be, no, not teachers or janitors or workers soaking up overtime, but private prison CEOs and "cyber school" CEOs and waste management CEOs? Then you know what to do. Americans for the Separation of Church and State helps you tell Congress to oppose public school privatization efforts.
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